The Great Digital Migration

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Mankind has experienced mass migrations across continents, land bridges, and over oceans. Another migration of unprecedented scale has begun and many don't even realize it. According to Luciano Floridi, we've begun a mass migration into the digital realm, changing both ourselves and our environments in profound, fundamental ways.


Floridi writes in the article, Ethics After the Informational Revolution,

"We have begun to see ourselves as connected informational organisms (inforgs)... through the re-ontologization of our environment and of ourselves."

He is quick to point out that our digital devices are not merely enhancing or augmenting us, but rather re-ontologizing, or changing our very nature of being. How is this so?


The internet is the perfect example to look at, especially with the widespread use of smartphones, giving more than 3.5 billion people (1) instant access to the web at the fingertips. A widely held belief is that smart devices and the internet are detrimental to cognitive function, leading to short attention spans and poor memory.


A study published in 2011 sought to prove whether or not the use of Google had an effect on users' memory. Contrary to popular belief, the research showed that the ability to recall information in the presence of digital devices correlated with whether users were presented with continuously available, or saved, information (2). In other words, with the knowledge that information would be saved for future retrieval, users' brains did not need to remember the exact information but just the location. Their conclusion sounds shockingly reminiscent of Floridi's writings:

"[The] processes of human memory are adapting to the advent of new computing and communication technology... We are becoming symbiotic with our computer tools, growing into interconnected systems that remember less by knowing information than by knowing where the information can be found," (2).

Science Mag, 05 Aug 2011.

As we continue to migrate our parts of our informational lives into the digital sphere, the more we'll depend on it. Floridi predicts that one day, even a mere disruption in one's informational exchange can make one sick. Though his statement may reek of warnings of dystopia, Floridi evidently embraces these changes with open arms. He believes that only when we accept these new technologies, with all their faults, are we able to make sound ethical decisions to preserve and better both ourselves and our environment.



Citation:

1. Newzoo. (September 17, 2019). Number of smartphone users worldwide from 2016 to 2021 (in billions) [Graph]. In Statista. Retrieved January 24, 2020, from https://www.statista.com/statistics/330695/number-of-smartphone-users-worldwide/

2. Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips. Betsy Sparrow et al. in Science, Vol. 333, pages 776–778; August 5, 2011.